For me personally, I do take deleted games into account - but I also take into account the number of posts *in* those games. 10 deleted games that all have over 2000 posts means something entirely different to me than 10 deleted games with under 200 posts. (In my experience, games should come close to that just from OOC conversation when a party is being formed.)

More than deleted games, I take into account how often I see GMs advertising for players. 'Wanted - Players' is something I check on a regular basis, whether I'm looking for a game or not, just out of curiosity. Those games that seem to be up for players every time they're available for bumping? That's a huge red flag for me, because it says that the game can't keep players. That means more to me than even a kazillion deleted games.

carnyzzle member, 227 posts What was I doing again?Wed 31 May 2017at 01:34

msg #9

Deleted Games: What could this mean to a player

yeah, there's way too many factors that goes into guessing what happened to a game if it's deleted.
I know in my case a lot of the games I go into end up having players slowly stop posting until the game straight up halts.

gladiusdei member, 548 postsWed 31 May 2017at 01:38

msg #10

Deleted Games: What could this mean to a player

As a gm, that is my biggest complaint and frustration on rpol. A lot of people complain about gms dropping games, but when players just stop posting it is just as bad. If you don't like my game or an aspect of it, tell me, but don't just stop playing. I can't possibly fix anything in a game that ceases to move. And if you can't play any more for rl reasons, give me the courtesy of telling me.

I'm dealing with this in the games I'm running. I'm keeping the crunchy bits minimized, doing my best to maintain a good pace, keep things moving and interesting... and then I have players simply stop posting. Sometimes they tell me that things have come up, but more often than not I get nothing. I send PMs and that works maybe one time in three.

One of my games has had several requests for new players because of this. I'm doing everything I can to make it a good game, but I still have players just mysteriously stop showing up.

SunRuanEr member, 49 postsWed 31 May 2017at 13:58

msg #12

Deleted Games: What could this mean to a player

I loathe when players just start taking powders and either stop checking the game, or stop posting - and the rate of attrition on RPoL is super-high, I know. It's one thing to see an established game looking for new players - RL happens, RPoL attrition happens, sometimes you just lose people, even the good ones. You'll get people who get super-interested in combat, but not in the RP portion of an RPG (I so don't get this! Why RTJ to a game explained as roleplay heavy if you don't want to roleplay?), or maybe one player disappeared and it started a chain reaction because everyone else was waiting on them, or you'll get people that post once and then sit around waiting for an ST post before they go again instead of interacting with other players (not a necessity, people, unless it's a combat round!), and stuff just happens... and it stinks.

It's when games are literally bumping every week for new players that I get concerned. If your player turnover is so rapid that you need fresh blood every seven days, I can't attribute that to the usual RPoL attrition. At that point I have to assume that it's a problem with the way the GM is running the game, which (to cycle back to the original topic) is why I weigh that heavier than whether or not the GM has deleted games in their list.

I don't know about other GMs, but when a game has reached its conclusion, I allow a couple of weeks for players to remove anything they want to save and then send it on to the Deleted pile, so that jase & co. can clear the file space when they get around to it. I rarely run more than three active games and have seen about a half dozen to completion (and had to close one when it was obvious I wasn't in sync with the players), so I guess you'd look sideways at me.

Also, I think Rpol deletes inactive games after a while.

Briel member, 30 postsWed 31 May 2017at 19:01

msg #14

Deleted Games: What could this mean to a player

To me, it's an invitation to look deeper at those games to see why they were deleted (if there are clues in the OOC). Lots of deleted games with small post counts is a flag to me that warrants investigation. Sometimes the GM has just been cursed with bad players. Sometimes, the GM turns out to be unreliable for whatever reason(s). Sometimes I see a poor GM who drives away players. Regardless, what I find in some of those deleted games definitely influences my decision to submit a RTJ.

To me, it's an invitation to look deeper at those games to see why they were deleted (if there are clues in the OOC). Lots of deleted games with small post counts is a flag to me that warrants investigation. Sometimes the GM has just been cursed with bad players. Sometimes, the GM turns out to be unreliable for whatever reason(s). Sometimes I see a poor GM who drives away players. Regardless, what I find in some of those deleted games definitely influences my decision to submit a RTJ.

I'm with Briel 100%. While there are a variety of reason why a given game may be deleted, it's still nice as a data point looked at in a broader context.

For example, while it's true that people can reuse games so as to hide their deleted status, all that means is that deleted games cannot be accurately used for relative means of comparison. They can however still be used to communicate potentially useful information about an individual GM who has a lot of deleted games showing.

Look into the games themselves. How long did the game run? How many players did it have? How many posts did it have? You can't know for sure, but can usually make a pretty good educated guess as to the reason for the game's demise.

That educated guess taken into context with other factors (their active games, their inactive games, the style of RTJ, the content of their GM posts, etc.) may help you come to a conclusion as to whether or not they're a good fit.

People on RPOL very frequently complain about GMs bailing on games, but frequently don't spend the small amount of time it would take to see if a GM had a track record on hand that could help them suss out that information beforehand.

silverelf member, 222 postsSat 3 Jun 2017at 03:22

msg #17

Re: Deleted Games: What could this mean to a player

Sometimes games go into the deleted because they have run their course, sometimes because either the gm or players or both have lost interest in the game. It is a situation where you really can't judge via the deleted games on some accounts. I rarely delete games. I tend to reuse the old ones. Some people will get an idea for something change their mind and delete. There are always reasons.

A lot of people are really hard on GMs they forget small things like IRL has to come first, and they burn out. I have seen this also sadly happen, these are the saddest deleted games to me.

Brianna member, 2124 postsSun 4 Jun 2017at 05:30

msg #18

Re: Deleted Games: What could this mean to a player

This is reminding me of the statistics that say so many businesses 'fail' in the first year. Sure a lot do, but usually included are, to name a couple of examples, those started to take advantage of a fad but where the owner has taken that into account and never intended it to be a long term thing, or those run by students whether just for the summer or for the school year.

Sometimes a game is just done, it was always intended to be a single adventure, short term thing.

Another thing to consider is that some GM's have a lot of misses...but their hits are BIG hits. Most of my games fail, and i go in expecting that any given game won't last long. The ones that last, though, usually see posts in the tens of thousands and end up lasting months or years. I've probably run and played in a good hundred or more games in my years on RPoL, but the ones i remember are the ten or so that were epic and long-lasting tales which i and other players still look back on fondly.

What i've found is the best way to help keep a game alive as a player is to just post. Keep it moving; a game is not yet dead which has even a single dedicated player, and even a burnt-out GM can be inspired by a proactive player who is a walking plot hook and makes things happen just by being there.

Same goes for GM's. When in doubt, do something to move the scene along or summarize it and move on to the next thing. It's okay to go 'and then this happened, and the next day...' to get past a roadblock. Don't let a scene drag on indefinitely; end it, and go to the part of the story that does inspire you.

This message was last edited by the user at 11:04, Sun 04 June.

icosahedron152 member, 759 postsMon 12 Jun 2017at 12:51

msg #20

Re: Deleted Games: What could this mean to a player

Well said, Eternaldarkness!

Maybe some of these games fail because players are too busy analyzing GM statistics to actually make game posts. If you want to know what a GM is like, play with him/her!

What have you got to lose, folks? You planning to marry the GM or something?

If you see a game you fancy, give it a go, and if you don't like it send your apologies to the GM and bow out gracefully. Maybe you'll enjoy yourself despite what the tea leaf reading suggests.

Merevel member, 1164 posts The Unlucky GamerSat 17 Jun 2017at 14:39

msg #21

Re: Deleted Games: What could this mean to a player

And then you get people like me who's anxiety occasional kicks them in the teeth. Between a shuffling cast and rl it's sometimes hard to run a game and they tank.

I can only make excuses. :-/

As for my opinion, yolo it. Worse comes to worse your back where you started and not in a game right lol?

Kagekiri member, 184 postsSat 17 Jun 2017at 17:18

msg #22

Re: Deleted Games: What could this mean to a player

In reply to icosahedron152 (msg # 20):

I agree. I don't lose much if a game tanks early on. I lose practically nothing if I save all my notes from character creation. That character can be modified slightly and used as a PC or NPC in future games.

I've made a conscious effort over the years to pull away from the feeling that I've been somehow slighted if a game doesn't pan out the way I hoped. For myself, at least, it's never true and even if it was, I think it's better to just to forgive/let-it-go and find another game. Having tried and failed so many times I feel it's only right to be considerate of others who do the same. If a GMs game falls apart, they're probably already feeling bad that they couldn't deliver what they hoped to. Coming to them with my broken expectations and demanding a refund on my free fun will only make things worse.

Not judging anyone for how they feel on the subject. These are strictly my own thoughts and feelings as applied to my circumstances.

See, that's kind of where I am. I've got three deleted games to my credit right now. Two just failed to get any attention at all. No RTJ nibbles, not even a lookie-loo. The third one balked due to a computer failure and I lost every single one of my notes and I just didn't have it in me to try and rebuild it. It was just one of those games that you KNEW was going to do well, but Fate's a fickle mistress and I don't feel like tempting her again.

The two games that I've got sitting right now - one is something I'm building whole cloth and the other is one I'm slowly working on because every time I try and rush one, I burn my thought process out. Neither one has had much movement on my end right now because I'm in a weird sort of limbo at my job (may be moving laterally into a brand new position they created just for me) and I'm kind of all over the place right now.

I've been a GM on here for a loooong time and I have my fair share of deleted games.

For the most part I have a TON of deleted games because my old job was very "boring" and I had the time to run about a dozen games or so. Then I got a new job and had to kill almost all of them.

Meanwhile in my early days I had a lot of aborted games that have thankfully been wiped from rPoL's memory...

For me this is an interesting thing but when I'm interested in applying for a game I look at the deleted games from these perspectives:

How much activity was there. If the game had only a few posts or had over a thousand posts I don't worry about it. It's the games that definitely had player activity but then died, so around a hundred or so is a big red flag.

How popular is their game systems? It's one thing to try out something weird or advert for some esoteric game that isn't popular but it's hard to imagine someone struggling to find players for games like D&D or Pathfinder or WoD. I've shut down games for weirder systems because you only get like 4-6 players applying and when half of them drop it can be hard to keep going forward.

Are they all the same story/theme? Again some people try different things. Some people try and build the same game over and over and over again and when I see 6 'copies' of that same game sitting in someone's trash bin I don't have a lot of faith that it will go the distance.

Godzfirefly member, 473 postsTue 20 Jun 2017at 02:25

msg #25

Re: Deleted Games: What could this mean to a player

Honestly, I think I weigh how many games the GMs are running right now more than how many deleted games they have.

If a player is trying to actively run a dozen games at once, it makes me uncomfortable.

Especially if several of them haven't posted in 2-4 weeks.

Doubly so if the players have logged in or posted much more recently than the GM.

Disappointment when a promising game dies young is naturall. Feelings of anger/betrayal seem misplaced. And pointless.

bazhsw member, 6 postsThu 27 Jul 2017at 21:28

msg #27

Re: Deleted Games: What could this mean to a player

I have to say I have to get my fingers burnt by a GM before I would dismiss joining their games but I have become very wary when I see a long list of deleted games with 100 or so posts.

One of my experiences we all got through character generation and then the game was just deleted. Not a peep from the GM as if to say, 'I don't think this is going to work so I'm calling it off'. Just a deletion. Sadly I've since noticed the same GM recycle games but also have a bunch of 100 or so post games. It was brought to mind because I saw something I would love to play but the game is probably several years in scope to run through and yet nothing gets past a week.

I think it's a combination of bad manners (I know players are to) but also some GM's need to think about doing short one-shots rather than think big, at least until they get their feet wet.

So yes, if there are successful games which end, or ideas that don't off the ground then that's cool. I'll always give people a chance but it is a little disheartening to jump through numerous rtj hoops and then the game hardly moves.

willvr member, 1077 postsThu 27 Jul 2017at 22:41

msg #28

Re: Deleted Games: What could this mean to a player

Personally, I'd go for a game epic in scope, even if it's unlikely to ever finish, than a short one-off, as both player or GM. Can't stand short one-offs; so no, I don't agree GMs should start off with small games.

However, I do think having only a few games. Don't use up all the slots you have for games.

DarkLightHitomi member, 1168 postsThu 27 Jul 2017at 22:54

msg #29

Re: Deleted Games: What could this mean to a player

I have a lot of short lived games, but I am usually trying custom rules looking for feedback. I don't get much interest and often the games die. But for me, if I get even one decent post of feedback on what I tried to do, then it was worth it, but it does give me a lot of short, deleted, or reused games.

willvr member, 1078 postsThu 27 Jul 2017at 22:58

msg #30

Re: Deleted Games: What could this mean to a player

If you're playtesting custom rules one-offs are more understandable. Not sure it's something I'd be interested even so; but it doesn't have quite the same 'danger danger' vibe, for me.

Regardless, you bring up a good point - there may be reasons why a GM has many short-lived games. It might be best if you at least talk to them first; which is why I never make a decision based purely off the number of games someone might have. Also, some people do delete the majority of content from a game before deleting it, which means that the game may look more inactive than it is.

Possibly a question for the mods, but how long do the deleted games sit on a GM's "record" so to speak from the Players - Wanted board?

I remember back in the day that deleted games would be purged after a certain amount of time (hence I only have three games showing up!) but I've seen some people advertising on PW with dozens of games showing up. I agree with the original conclusion in this particular post that deleted games means "Whatever the player wants it to mean," but as much as you say that, there's still likely to be some informing of the decision based on the number of dead games.

The reality is that getting a game to succeed on here is really difficult, I have run and played in more games than I'd want to count, and so many of them go through a lot of effort and then still end up dying off. I am loathe to hold the number of deleted games against a GM...